Some people in this thread are barking up the wrong tree. Guns didn't matter very much IOTL except in the very first encounters.
Really. Jared Diamond is only 2/3 right in his famous book; germs and steel mattered far more than guns. His book should have been titled "Germs, Steel, and Allies" or "Ships, Germs, and Steel" (since those ships allowed the Europeans to reach the Americas in the first place) if it wanted to be a more accurate representation of the Spanish conquest.
Now, firearms weren't useless. They had a high rate of fire which could shatter organized charges of Mexica troops, especially since Mesoamerican commanders led at the front. The noise did have a psychological impact, shocking the Mesoamericans who had never been acquainted with a remotely similar thing. But it didn't last. The Mexica very quickly realized that the noise and smoke were irrelevant and that guns shot in a straight line, and they changed their pre-gun tactics of frontal charges by dodging to the sides when cannons or muskets fired. During the Siege of Tenochtitlan, the Mexica used armored canoes which were impervious to gunpowder. Mesoamerican armies were disciplined and could overcome new and unfamiliar weapons (similarly, the Mexica responded capably to horses with pikes and pits and choosing broken terrain). Besides, the powder periodically spoiled due to humidity. By the last year of the Conquest Cortes was trying to build catapults because he didn't have enough gunpowder to fire cannons.
Even if the Mexica had not adapted to firearms, their effectiveness would have been limited because there were so few of them. And since there were few roads ready to transport huge lumps of metal (Americans did not use wheels for transportation, so roads were meant for human or llama traffic rather than wagons or horses) cannons were also extremely cumbersome to transport, especially in Mexico and the Andes which are defined by mountains and do not have any rivers criss-crossing the entire region. Besides being rare, guns were heavy, slow, dangerous, needed tripods (also rare) to support the barrels, and were easily damaged. Muskets or volley firing did not exist when Cortes dismembered the Mexica state and Pizarro destroyed the Inca empire, making guns even less effective. So most conquistadors just used guns as metal clubs after firing them once, or else dropped them to concentrate on wielding their sword and retrieved them later.
The more effective European weapons like horses and more importantly steel swords were already everywhere throughout Eurasia by Han and Roman times, never mind the 14th century. Cortes could have carried out the conquest without any guns, but without the Mexica empire (which created a common enemy against which the Spaniards could recruit allies) I doubt Cortes could have won with twice the guns he had.
Really. Jared Diamond is only 2/3 right in his famous book; germs and steel mattered far more than guns. His book should have been titled "Germs, Steel, and Allies" or "Ships, Germs, and Steel" (since those ships allowed the Europeans to reach the Americas in the first place) if it wanted to be a more accurate representation of the Spanish conquest.
Now, firearms weren't useless. They had a high rate of fire which could shatter organized charges of Mexica troops, especially since Mesoamerican commanders led at the front. The noise did have a psychological impact, shocking the Mesoamericans who had never been acquainted with a remotely similar thing. But it didn't last. The Mexica very quickly realized that the noise and smoke were irrelevant and that guns shot in a straight line, and they changed their pre-gun tactics of frontal charges by dodging to the sides when cannons or muskets fired. During the Siege of Tenochtitlan, the Mexica used armored canoes which were impervious to gunpowder. Mesoamerican armies were disciplined and could overcome new and unfamiliar weapons (similarly, the Mexica responded capably to horses with pikes and pits and choosing broken terrain). Besides, the powder periodically spoiled due to humidity. By the last year of the Conquest Cortes was trying to build catapults because he didn't have enough gunpowder to fire cannons.
Even if the Mexica had not adapted to firearms, their effectiveness would have been limited because there were so few of them. And since there were few roads ready to transport huge lumps of metal (Americans did not use wheels for transportation, so roads were meant for human or llama traffic rather than wagons or horses) cannons were also extremely cumbersome to transport, especially in Mexico and the Andes which are defined by mountains and do not have any rivers criss-crossing the entire region. Besides being rare, guns were heavy, slow, dangerous, needed tripods (also rare) to support the barrels, and were easily damaged. Muskets or volley firing did not exist when Cortes dismembered the Mexica state and Pizarro destroyed the Inca empire, making guns even less effective. So most conquistadors just used guns as metal clubs after firing them once, or else dropped them to concentrate on wielding their sword and retrieved them later.
The more effective European weapons like horses and more importantly steel swords were already everywhere throughout Eurasia by Han and Roman times, never mind the 14th century. Cortes could have carried out the conquest without any guns, but without the Mexica empire (which created a common enemy against which the Spaniards could recruit allies) I doubt Cortes could have won with twice the guns he had.